Health-care heats up Democratic debate

By gerencherk

Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama sparred over whose health-care proposal was more comprehensive just minutes into the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in Las Vegas on Thursday evening. Clinton said Obama’s plan, which would not require individuals to purchase health insurance, would fall short of universal coverage by leaving 15 million uninsured. She also accused former Sen. John Edwards of failing to support universal coverage when he ran for president in 2004. After a few heated exchanges CNN’s Wolf Blitzer directed the candidates to other matters.

Candidates then fielded questions about education, immigration, the war in Iraq, relations with Pakistan and free trade. They discussed strengthening import procedures to prevent further health scares related to hazardous toys, pet food and medication on the U.S. market.

In the second half of the debate when audience members posed the questions, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson took one about income disparities. He incorporated health care into his answer, saying, “We have a mental health system in this country that is not given the parity it deserves.”

A doozy of a question occurred 15 minutes before the debate was scheduled to end. A casino worker asked what the candidates planned to do to shore up Medicare and Social Security as the baby boomers age into these programs in a few years.

“Medicare is a tougher problem because we’ve got health-care inflation going up, and I’m meeting people all over the country who can’t manage even if they’ve already got health insurance,” Obama said. He said the only way to fix it is to get to universal coverage and make provisions for information technology and prevention to bring down costs.

Clinton said Medicare should be able to negotiate prices with drug companies to better control the costs of the two-year-old prescription drug benefit.

Note: In my original post on Thursday I wrote that Clinton accused Edwards of failing to support universal coverage when he was running as vice president on John Kerry’s presidential bid. In fact, she accused Edwards of failing to support it when he was running for president in the Democratic primary. I’ve since corrected the post.

About Health Matters

Health Matters is a blog-style round-up of news and analysis concerning consumer health and the business of health care. The lead writer is MarketWatch reporter Kristen Gerencher, who also writes the Vital Signs column. Andrea Coombes and Jonathan Burton contribute editing. Gerencher won a 2006 explanatory journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists-Northern California for a series she did on health savings accounts.